Using Iomega Zip drive with A500 Plus

[tone007]

I'll add one more opinion, since I don't see it clearly stated anywhere here:

Forget about ZIP drives, they were fairly crappy when they were new and by now I wouldn't imagine them to be worth the trouble.

Wait around for a sidecar SCSI expansion for the A500, I've had no less than 3 or 4 pass through my ownership in the past 3 years. I've had pretty good luck with the SupraDrive XPs. They do seem to be getting a bit harder to find, but short of obtaining something like an IDE68K device, they're probably the easiest way to go (and can often also add some fastram for you.) I'll assume you're not in the US, otherwise I could probably offer a SupraDrive with 8MB RAM at a reasonable cost.  Shipping and customs kind of mess that all up, though.

[Ral-Clan]

I could only find A2091 ROMs for the SCSI controller. I'll stop bidding on the Zip drive, in that case.

Hi. I am not understanding what you are trying to say here.  Why are you looking for a ROM for a SCSI Controller?  

Here's what you need to do:

1. BUY a whole SCSI controller card.  Any of the ones on this list that are ALSO Zorro II for the A2000 will work. ($50 max)
http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/scsi
The older ones that only do simple PIO transfers usually sell for cheap, because few people want them.
Try e-mailing one of these people or posting an ad here:
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=40994

2. Next, BUY one of these ($25)
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=8373
...or make one according to the plans here:
http://aminet.net/package/docs/hard/2000slot

3. Then, buy (for a few dollars) an old SCSI hard drive. Or get one for free from a computer recycler store or Craigslist. (Free or $10 max)

4. Power the hard drive with an old PC power supply you get for free.

5. Connect all of the above together and connect the lot to your A500's expansion port.

6. YOU ARE DONE.

Honestly, that's the cheapest way.  It's not the prettiest, but it's the cheapest way to get a true hard drive on an Amiga 500.

Alternatively, buy an A500 sidecar.  It's essentially the same thing, in a pretty, neat looking case.  It will cost more but save you the hassle of sourcing all the parts.

Also, could you post some of your artwork here?  I'd like to see it, sounds interesting.  I'm setting up an A500 for DPaint myself, as well.

[ChaosLord]

I'm not looking to replace my A500 Plus with an A1200, but would keep both of them. The A500 Plus is quite different to the A1200. I don't think that 100% of software that will run on an A500 Plus will run on an A1200, no matter what you do. I wonder if one possible storage solution would be to connect my A500 Plus to an A1200 with a CF card installed on it, then save data from the A500 Plus to the A1200 CF card.

That would absolutely work!
Positively!
Both A500 and A1200 have a PAR port so if you get a friendly little PARnet cable and run Parnet on both machines (free from Aminet) then you have a super easy and friendly network between your 2 machines.  Parnet is completely groovy.  You can copy files back and forth no problem.

The thing is, if you could get an A1200 then you would be solving many problems for yourself all at once.  You would have a ParNet capable setup.  You would have 16.7 million colors to draw with instead of 4096.  You would have 2MB RAM instead of 1MB.  You would have an IDE hard disk controller so that when someone gives u their old "worthless" 20GB hard drive you will be in heaven.  Plus you would have a free CPU accelerator.  Plus other nifty advantages that can save you $$.


Any gfx software you are likely to run is going to work on the A1200 just fine.  Actually gfx software works better on the A1200 since it has a faster CPU and more chipram.

The stuff I've done in Deluxe Paint recently is some figures of superheroes copied from art books and just one original piece of artwork of a stained glass window. This was a copy of a chalk type pastel painting originally done on black paper. Someone at a meeting said "You didn't draw that with the MOUSE, did you?!" and I replied that I did. I haven't done any animations on this Amiga, especially because some of the examples supplied won't run. I just get an error message that there's not enough RAM to animate. This is a standard A500 Plus with 1Mb RAM, which is all chip RAM. I wonder if Deluxe Paint III expects there to be some fast RAM.

When doing animations it always helps to have more RAM.  If you stick to making AnimBrushes they use a ton less memory when you animate a small size object.

[ChaosLord]

Apart from this, I'll be distracted by other programs, especially web browsers, but with the Amiga A500 Plus I can just sit there are do some artwork with no distractions from the Internet.

hehe Some ppl will think u r weird for saying that.  But it is totally true!  When I am on or near my internet computer it is just tooooo tempting for me to go check the forums real quick.  or to check my email real quick.  Its really hard for me to get any work done.

[Ral-Clan]

hehe Some ppl will think u r weird for saying that.  But it is totally true!  When I am on or near my internet computer it is just tooooo tempting for me to go check the forums real quick.  or to check my email real quick.  Its really hard for me to get any work done.

I will second that.  I'm just setting up my A500 "workstation" now and it's sooooo not distracting compared with web-connected computers.

[gertsy]

I used to use both a CDROM and Zip Drive on A500 and I defaulted to the CD because it was just so easy to copy files from the PC.
I think the best solution overall is an A590 and a SCSI to Compact Flash adaptor.  One internal in the A590 and one external.  Again not cheap but elegant, easy and effective for internal storage and portable copies.  I guess it will work, anyone done it?

PS : ral-clan : "My Piano" is cool.  "..with teeth that shine, ,it likes Leonard Bernstein,, tunes..." top line.  "A Musical Disease" is pro quality.  Kudos 2 U.

[Ral-Clan]

PS : ral-clan : "My Piano" is cool.  "..with teeth that shine, ,it likes Leonard Bernstein,, tunes..." top line.  "A Musical Disease" is pro quality.  Kudos 2 U.

Thanks, man!  Bars & Pipes on the A2000 played a big role in putting those together!
All the little icons beside the songs are also done with Amiga software.

...and now, back to your regularly scheduled thread.

[AmigaBruno]

Hi. I am not understanding what you are trying to say here.  Why are you looking for a ROM for a SCSI Controller?  

Here's what you need to do:

1. BUY a whole SCSI controller card.  Any of the ones on this list that are ALSO Zorro II for the A2000 will work. ($50 max)
http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/scsi
The older ones that only do simple PIO transfers usually sell for cheap, because few people want them.
Try e-mailing one of these people or posting an ad here:
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=40994

2. Next, BUY one of these ($25)
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=8373
...or make one according to the plans here:
http://aminet.net/package/docs/hard/2000slot

3. Then, buy (for a few dollars) an old SCSI hard drive. Or get one for free from a computer recycler store or Craigslist. (Free or $10 max)

4. Power the hard drive with an old PC power supply you get for free.

5. Connect all of the above together and connect the lot to your A500's expansion port.

6. YOU ARE DONE.

Honestly, that's the cheapest way.  It's not the prettiest, but it's the cheapest way to get a true hard drive on an Amiga 500.

Alternatively, buy an A500 sidecar.  It's essentially the same thing, in a pretty, neat looking case.  It will cost more but save you the hassle of sourcing all the parts.

Also, could you post some of your artwork here?  I'd like to see it, sounds interesting.  I'm setting up an A500 for DPaint myself, as well.

I  searched for Amiga A2091 (or whatever the number was) and the ROMs were all that came up. A search for Amiga SCSI brings up various SCSI drives which I assume require a SCSI controller, but the cheapest item at the moment which comes with a SCSI controller is listed as Buy it now for about £87/US$140, so a big difference there to your suggested "$50 max".

[AmigaBruno]

Hi. I am not understanding what you are trying to say here.  Why are you looking for a ROM for a SCSI Controller?  

Here's what you need to do:

1. BUY a whole SCSI controller card.  Any of the ones on this list that are ALSO Zorro II for the A2000 will work. ($50 max)
http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/scsi
The older ones that only do simple PIO transfers usually sell for cheap, because few people want them.
Try e-mailing one of these people or posting an ad here:
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=40994

2. Next, BUY one of these ($25)
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=8373
...or make one according to the plans here:
http://aminet.net/package/docs/hard/2000slot

3. Then, buy (for a few dollars) an old SCSI hard drive. Or get one for free from a computer recycler store or Craigslist. (Free or $10 max)

4. Power the hard drive with an old PC power supply you get for free.

5. Connect all of the above together and connect the lot to your A500's expansion port.

6. YOU ARE DONE.

Honestly, that's the cheapest way.  It's not the prettiest, but it's the cheapest way to get a true hard drive on an Amiga 500.

Alternatively, buy an A500 sidecar.  It's essentially the same thing, in a pretty, neat looking case.  It will cost more but save you the hassle of sourcing all the parts.

Also, could you post some of your artwork here?  I'd like to see it, sounds interesting.  I'm setting up an A500 for DPaint myself, as well.

I  searched eBay for Amiga A2091 (or whatever the number was) and the ROMs were all that came up. A search for Amiga SCSI brings up various SCSI drives which I assume require a SCSI controller, but the cheapest item at the moment which comes with a SCSI controller is a Zorro plug in card, in Hungary, listed as Buy it now for about £87/US$140, so a big difference there to your suggested "$50 max". These searches included items which wouldn't be sent to the UK, where I am.

I looked on Craigslist, but didn't find anything for Amiga in my city. I don't know about PIO transfers or which drives do them. I was just searching for "Amiga SCSI".

I've just had some very bad financial news, so now I need to concentrate on making anything which will earn me some money, or if not money then something I can use instead of money, because due to the continuing financial crisis, I expect money to be declared worthless later this year. I plan to throw myself into studying electronics intensively as well as  other things. I know that the only way to make money out of the Amiga is to  produce some kind of PCB which either brings the classic Amiga more up to date, or is something which used to be mass produced but no longer is, such as a SCSI controller for the A500 and A500 Plus.

I hope that anything which connects to the left hand side edge connector is compatible with the A500 Plus. I was recently reading a scanned PDF of an old Swedish magazine called "Dator", which was mainly about the Amiga and had an article about software and some hardware which wasn't compatible with the A500 Plus. It said the A501 RAM expansion wasn't compatible. This tells you I speak Swedish. I actually started to translate the Swedish magazine "Amiga Forum", which has been posted here on another thread. If anyone has some German manuals which they can't understand, then I could translate them for a small fee. The Amiga was very popular in Germany, which I'm sure most people on here know.

As for my artwork, most of the stuff I've done with DPaint recently is from tutorials in the books "Draw The Marvel Comics Super Heroes" published by Klutz  and "How To Draw Superman". This means that the examples are Copyright Marvel (Disney) and DC Comics, so I can't post them on here. I have done this kind of artwork in the past on paper and canvas cards, but it's only now that I'm doing it on a computer, thanks to the way that Windoze and even Linux graphics software works. I've also got some books published by Hermes House about cartooning and drawing Manga, which I plan to study to give my artwork more variety.  

At the moment, I could only upload my picture of a stained glass window. Even then, I can only take a pic of it and upload that, because at the moment I have no way of connecting my A500 Plus to any other device. I was surprised when taking pics of the graphics displayed on a SONY 4:3 CRT TV connected via SCART that my HP R927 camera showed the screen refreshing itself and could only take a pic of about one third of the screen, but a cheap Alcatel Android phone I bought recently is able to take pics of the whole screen without any problems. Does anyone here know why this is?

[Ral-Clan]

Keep looking.  You will find a SCSI card for under $50.  They show up in fits and starts on eBay.  One day none, another day three. Look on AmiBay too.
As for making money off designing Amiga hardware - I'm afraid there's very little money in that, even for the people who are professionals (like Jens Schoenfield - sp?).  I don't think he's getting rich from that.  However, if you could prove us wrong that would be great.  Good luck.  I think pursuing electronics is worthwhile.

PS: I would still be interested in seeing your stained glass picture if it's easy for you to post.

[AmigaBruno]

Keep looking.  You will find a SCSI card for under $50.  They show up in fits and starts on eBay.  One day none, another day three. Look on AmiBay too.
As for making money off designing Amiga hardware - I'm afraid there's very little money in that, even for the people who are professionals (like Jens Schoenfield - sp?).  I don't think he's getting rich from that.  However, if you could prove us wrong that would be great.  Good luck.  I think pursuing electronics is worthwhile.

PS: I would still be interested in seeing your stained glass picture if it's easy for you to post.

I'll keep looking for Amiga SCSI, but I probably need to concentrate on money making schemes now.

I've just searched Craigslist in NYC, as well as Ontario, Ottawa, and Hamilton/Burlington to see if I was missing anything, but none of my searches for Amiga turned up anything to do with SCSI. Obviously, I don't know whereabouts in Ontario you are, and it's a big place.

I think that Jens Schönfeld (alternative spelling Schoenfeld) must be making a living from producing devices for the Amiga and other computers, because how would he find the time to do much else? I didn't say anything about "getting rich", but it depends on your definition of rich. Last year I paid EUR57 for a floppy drive emulator for another computer. I think it was made in a batch of about 20-30 and they were snapped up. I think that lots of Amiga A500/A500 Plus owners may be interested in a version of this which plugs in externally, shows up as DF1:  and is cheaper than the HXC device. I also think that lots of A500/A500 Plus owners may like to get a SCSI hard drive with controller. I could be wrong about this, but however many there are, I'm fairly sure that it could be produced for less money than the prices of the SCSI controllers which have been coming up on eBay. I could buy some of those ROMs and copy them onto EPROMs. I'm not sure if they were by Commodore, but I doubt if the company which made them is still in business, so they can't complain. If not, then they may want something else which can be produced for a lot less than they'd be willing to pay for it. I think that the ultimate example of this is the currently produced ranges of PPC based Amigas. Most of these sell for about EUR1,000, although just a Sam440 board costs less than EUR300, but you have to buy a copy of AmigaOS 4.1 with it. For your money it seems that all you get is a board similar to an old Mac, but with a custom ROM, and a version of U-Boot which checks for particular hardware, otherwise it will refuse to run AmigaOS 4.1. I think that like with Hackintosh projects someone will crack this at some time soon and produce something a lot cheaper than EUR1,000. I doubt it will be me, though. After this, I could probably run AmigaOS 4.1 on my Power Mac G4 "Quicksilver", which I picked up free of charge from http://www.freecycle.org . I've already run the trial version of MorphOS on it.

I think I'll post my pic of a stained glass window on here soon. Some of my other artwork is of a character similar to Supergirl, but fairly different and enough to avoid Copyright infringement. The style of artwork is DC/Marvel, though. Superman was based on the ancient Germanic legend called the "Übermensch" and his powers have been described as similar to Jason and the Argonauts.

[AmigaBruno]

Here's a pic taken with my Android phone of the stained glass window graphic screen I did on my Amiga. I have no other way of transferring this directly from the Amiga to anywhere else at the moment.



That doesn't seem to work, but try clicking on the link below

http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=3749

[Ral-Clan]

Looks fun...what version of DPAINT are you using?

[AmigaBruno]

Looks fun...what version of DPAINT are you using?

I'm using DPaint III. The date given in the manual is Copyright 1989. It mentions EHB modes, but I don't think there's any way of using the ECS 1280 horizontal resolution modes. This would require a patch, because those chips weren't released until 1991. Does DPaint IV support those modes?

[Ral-Clan]

I'm using DPaint III. The date given in the manual is Copyright 1989. It mentions EHB modes, but I don't think there's any way of using the ECS 1280 horizontal resolution modes. This would require a patch, because those chips weren't released until 1991. Does DPaint IV support those modes?

I believe that DPaint IV and V do support those modes (at least DPaint 4.6 does).
If you look around you should be able to get DPaint IV and V quite easily.

[ChaosLord]

I'm using DPaint III. The date given in the manual is Copyright 1989. It mentions EHB modes, but I don't think there's any way of using the ECS 1280 horizontal resolution modes. This would require a patch, because those chips weren't released until 1991. Does DPaint IV support those modes?

Just an FYI: you can forget about doing animations in 1280 modes on an A500.  The ECS chipset is just tremendously slow in those modes.   In any event you can't even display a 1280 screen in EHB as that would take more bandwidth than exists.

If you are interested in 1280 resolution screens then you really need AGA.

You can draw static graphics in 1280x512x256 colors in Dpaint 5 (maybe 4 too) and it will be a bit sluggish but still completely usable.

If you cut the colors down to 64 then it will be even faster.